Opinion

• Opinion

  Sharon’s Earthquake

  Fresh from his taboo-shattering withdrawal from Gaza last summer, Israel’s Prime Minister Sharon touched off yet another earthquake this week. The first earthquake, disengagement, began a redrawing of Israel’s geopolitical borders by removing troops and settlers unilaterally from territory first captured in 1967. The second earthquake will redraw the contours of Israeli politics, allowing him…

  3 min read
• Opinion

  Challenging the Right

  There are many reasons to applaud this month’s back-to-back speeches by Abe Foxman and Eric Yoffie on the dangers of the religious right, but here’s the most important: They have given voice to something their constituents have been thinking and feeling for a long time. American Jews need a voice that articulates their concerns on…

  Nov 25, 2005 | 2 min read
• Opinion

  Press Poland To Pass Property-Restitution Law

  In 1956, a year after Auschwitz survivor Michael Taffet became an American citizen, the government of Poland nationalized his family’s property in Debica. The seizure was based on a decree issued in 1946 that permitted the government to take property still considered “abandoned” 10 years after the end of World War II. Polish Jews like…

  By Marilyn Henry Nov 25, 2005 | 3 min read

Columnists View All

• Jodi Rudoren This is my last column as editor of the Forward

  

• Jay Michaelson American Jews were played — now what?

  

• Rob Eshman I have the answer to Jon Stewart’s toughest question about Israel

  

• Nora Berman ‘Eddington’ is full of conspiracy theories but it’s not about Jews. Or is it?

  

• Dan Perry Recognizing a Palestinian state is a great way to doom Palestinians

  

• Emily Tamkin Is starvation in Gaza really Israel’s fault? The facts are clear

  

The Latest

• Opinion

  The Long Way Home to Lhasa

  Tibet would seem to have little history in common with Israel. Yet much like Jews after the destruction of the Second Temple, today Tibetans face the daunting task of preserving their religious culture and national dreams while facing an indeterminate exile. The Dalai Lama, Tibet’s exiled political and cultural leader, is well aware of the…

  By Ira Rifkin Nov 25, 2005 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  Sharon Centers on What’s Left

  Since independence 58 years ago, Israel’s political system has lacked a true center. This week, Ariel Sharon decided to try to find it, and in the process, rewrite the history of the Jewish state. The prime minister’s jettisoning of his Likud connections is more than just politics become personal on a scale not seen since…

  By Yisrael Medad Nov 25, 2005 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  Reassign Blame for Jewish Birth Dearth

  Opinion writer Shulamit Reinharz levels a critique of gender bias at Jack Wertheimer that we find unfounded (“Blaming Women Begets No Babies,” November 4). In the Commentary opinion article to which Reinharz was responding, Wertheimer correctly notes that current low levels of fertility and high levels of intermarriage will shrink the American Jewish population dramatically….

  Nov 18, 2005 | 6 min read
• Opinion

  Peretz, the Next David (or Mitzna)

  The Hebrew word for “periphery” is “periferiah.” Last week, in the stunning victory of Amir Peretz over Shimon Peres for the chairmanship of the Labor Party — or, as accurately, in the stunning loss of Shimon Peres to Amir Peretz — it was the periferiah that moved to Israel’s center political stage. The biggest revolution…

  By Leonard Fein Nov 18, 2005 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  Bush’s Diplomacy

  As President Bush set off this week for an eight-day visit to Asia, his aides were trying to portray the trip as a low-stakes jaunt to show the flag in an important region. Bush was to attend a Pacific Rim summit in Korea, talk business with China, and shore up some friendly relationships in Japan…

  Nov 18, 2005 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  Peretz’s Moment

  The Israel Labor Party has had these moments before, when a man on horseback arrives to take the fading party by storm and promise it a new lease on life. Two years ago it was Amram Mitzna, the brainy ex-general-turned-mayor who emerged from obscurity to seize the party’s reins and lead it to a disastrous…

  Nov 18, 2005 | 2 min read
• Opinion

  Contempt for God Is Stealing America’s Morals

  I’m not a regular reader of Glamour magazine, but my wife was studying the current volume of that journal when a headline caught my eye: “The Man Who Stole My Life,” a story about hairdresser Kelly Stein. One day a transvestite named Debbie entered Stein’s beauty salon in Greensburg, Pa. “Raised never to judge” other…

  By David Klinghoffer Nov 18, 2005 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  An Injustice to Saddam’s Victims

  Last week Adil al-Zubeidi, a leading defense lawyer in the trial of Saddam Hussein and his erstwhile political colleagues, was assassinated on the streets of Baghdad. It was the second such killing in less than a month, and it has caused many to question whether the trial can be a fair one. How, more than…

  By Richard Goldstone Nov 18, 2005 | 4 min read